One of Life's Slaves Part 1

One of Life's Slaves.

by Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie.

PREFACE

In a review which appeared in the _Athenaeum_, of a translation of one of Jonas Lie's earlier works--"Den Fremsynte" ("The Visionary")--the reviewer expressed a hope that I would follow up that translation with "an English version of Lie's 'Livsslaven,' that intensely tragic and pathetic story of suffering and wrong." It is in accordance with this suggestion that the present volume makes its appearance.

In taking Christiania life for the subject of "Livsslaven," Jonas Lie attempted for the second time to break down the preconceived opinion of critics, that such a subject did not come within his province. They were accustomed to have tales of sea-life from his pen, and could not readily be persuaded that another sphere of life might afford equal scope for his talent. "Thomas Ross," published in 1878, had treated of Christiania life, and had attracted but little attention; and now, in the spring of 1883, appeared this "story of a smith's apprentice, with his struggles for existence and his ultimate final failure owing to the irresistible indulgence of a pa.s.sionate physical instinct." At first this too seemed to be a failure. To use the words of Arne Garborg, a Norwegian author and critic, Lie "had spoken--cried out in the pa.s.sion or agony of his soul, and people stood there quite calm and as if they had heard nothing;" there seemed to be a total lack of sympathetic comprehension on the part of the public. In the end, however, the book found its way to the hearts of its readers, and, to quote Mr. Gosse's words on the subject, "achieved a very great success; it was realistic and modern in a certain sense and to a discreet degree, and it appealed, as scarcely any Norwegian novel had done before, to all cla.s.ses of Scandinavian society."

Lie himself, in speaking of this work, says that a writer should "aim at presenting his subject in such a way that the reader may see, hear, feel, and comprehend it with the utmost possible intensity." This precept he has certainly put into practice in the present instance, for the subject is treated with such power and so full a grasp, that in reading the book one feels an actual anxiety, an oppression as of approaching disaster. This, at any rate, is the case with the original, and I trust that its power has not been altogether lost in the process of rendering into another language, but that the stamp of genuineness, the author's leading characteristic, may to some extent be found also in this translation.

J. MUIR.

CHRISTIANA,

November 10, 1894.

CHAPTER I

NEGLECTED RESPONSIBILITIES

"Like a prince in his cradle," you say, "with invisible fairies and the innocent peace of childhood over him!"

What fairy stood by the cradle of Barbara's Nikolai it would be difficult to say. Out at the tinsmith's, in the little house with the cracked and broken window-panes in the outskirts of the town, there was often a run of visitors, generally late at night, when wanderers on the high road were at a loss for a night's lodging. Many a revel had been held there, and it was not once only that the cradle had been overturned in a fight, or that a drunken man had fallen full length across it.

Nikolai's mother was called Barbara, and came from Heimdalhogden, somewhere far up in the country--a genuine mountain la.s.s, shining with health, red and white, strong and broad-shouldered, and with teeth like the foam in the milk pail. She had heard so much about the town from cattle-dealers that came over the mountain, that a longing and restlessness had taken possession of her.

And then she had gone out to service in the town.

She was about as suitable there as a tumble-down haystack in a handsome town street, or as a cow on a flight of stairs--that is to say, not at all.

She used to waste her time on the market-place by all the hay loads. She must see and feel the hay--_that_ was not at all like mountain gra.s.s.

"No indeed! Mountain gra.s.s was so soft, and then, how it smelt! Oh dear no!"

But her mistress had other uses for her servant than letting her spend the morning talking to hay-cart drivers. So she went from place to place, each time descending both as regarded wages and mistress. Barbara was good-natured and honest; but she had one fault--the great one of being totally unfit for all possible town situations.

Yet Society has, as we know, a wonderful faculty for making use of, a.s.similating and reconstructing everything, even the apparently most meaningless and useless, for its own purpose. And the way it took, quickly enough, with poor Barbara was that she became the only thing in which she could be of any service in the town--namely, a nurse.

It was a sad time and a hard struggle while the shame lasted, almost enough to kill her; and after that, she never thought of returning to the Heimdal mountains again.

But things were to be still harder.

The various social claims, which an age of progress increasingly lays upon the lady of the house in the upper cla.s.ses of society, a.s.serted themselves here in the town by an ever increasing demand for nurses.

"The reason," as Dr. Schneibel explained, "was simply a law of Nature--you can't be a milch-cow and an intelligent human being at the same time. The renovation of blood and nerves must be artificially conveyed from that cla.s.s of society which stands nearer to Nature."

And now the thing was to find an extra-healthy, thoroughly strong nurse for Consul-General Veyergang's two delicate, newly-arrived, little ones.

Dr. Schneibel had very thoughtfully kept a nurse in reserve for Mrs.

Veyergang--"a really remarkable specimen of the original healthiness in the common stock. One might say--h'm, h'm--that if Mrs. Veyergang could not get to the mountains, the mountains were so courteous as to come to her. The girl still had an odour of the cowshed about her perhaps; but when all's said and done, that was only a stronger a.s.surance of originality. And _that_ is an important factor in our day, madam, when milk is adulterated even from the very cows themselves.--Quite young, scarcely twenty!"

Barbara Hogden had not the faintest suspicion, as she carried water and wood, or stood at the edge of the ice beating linen, or did any drudgery she could find to do, in order to earn a little money to pay for herself and her baby at the tinsmith's, that, from her deepest degradation, she had risen at one step to the rank of an exceptionally sought-after and esteemed person in the town.

For a nurse _is_ an esteemed person. Indeed, she is on the expectancy list to become respected.

After having nursed her mistress's child, and been a correspondingly unnatural mother to her own, she ends by sleeping on down, and being considered in every way, until a new nurse for a new heir deposes her from her dynasty.

Should she prefer to give her own little baby the only treasure she possesses, her healthy breast, should she really be so blind to her own interests, why then the case is different, and (to use Dr. Schneibel's words) not altogether unmerited, only a result of the social economy to which she does not know how to be intelligently subordinate, and which will reduce her, with the inexorable logic of the laws of civilisation, to a useless superfluity, which Society's organism rejects. Or, vulgarly speaking, she is left with shame, contempt and poverty resting upon both her and her illegitimate offspring. As a private individual, she is in a sense right; but socially, as a member of society----!

At first poor Barbara was quite blind on this point, utterly obstinate, rigid as a mountain pony that could not be got to stir.

Dr. Schneibel was standing for the third time at the tinsmith's, with his stick under his nose, while his gig waited down in the road. Each time he had added to both wages and arguments, and had again and again pointed out how bad it would be both for her and her boy if she continued so obstinate. He appealed to her own good sense. How could she expect to bring him up in such poor, narrow circ.u.mstances, and with all this toiling and moiling? She would only need to give up a part of her large wages to the tinsmith, and they would look well after the boy.

Besides she could often come out and see him, at least once a month!--he could promise her that on the Veyergangs' behalf, and it was very kind of them now they lived such a long way out of town.

Dr. Schneibel talked both kindly and severely, both good-naturedly and sharply: he was almost like a father.

Barbara felt a pang of fear every time she saw him come down the street, and turn in by the rotten, mouldy wooden fence. She watched him like a bird that is afraid for her nest, and was sitting close to the wall in the darkest corner with the cradle behind her, when he opened the door.

It was impossible for her to answer except by a sob. The tinsmith's wife did all the talking with: "Why, bless me, yes!" and "Bless me, no!" and "Just so, doctor!" in garrulous superabundance, while Barbara only sat and meditated on taking her baby on her back and departing.

But to-day the doctor had talked so very kindly to her and offered her so much money. He had appealed so directly to her conscience, patted the child, and said that when it came to the point, he was sure she was not the mother who could be so cruel as to bring misery upon such a pretty little fellow, let him suffer want, let his pretty little feet be cold, when he might lie both comfortable and warm and like a little prince in his cradle!

It was not possible to resist, and in her emotion something like a half promise escaped her.

Afterwards a neighbour came in and was of exactly the same opinion, and told of all the little children whom she had known that had died of want and neglect, only in the houses round about, during the last two years, because their mothers had had to go out and work all day and could not pay any one to look after them. And she and the tinsmith's wife both spoke at once about the same thing--only the same thing.

Barbara sat listening and tending her child. Her heart felt like breaking. For a moment she thought of going, not to Hogden, but in another way, home with him at once.

It was a temptation.

That night she broke into sobs so ungovernable, that, in order not to disturb the household in their slumbers, she went out into the soft, drizzling rain: it quieted and cooled her.

As she was standing the next morning, helping a neighbour's wife to rinse and wring the clothes by the brook, a pony-carriage stopped in the road. The coachman--he had gold lace on his hat and coat--got down and went in to the tinsmith's.

"You must wring that sheet right out, Barbara," said the neighbour's wife; "it'll be the last you'll wring here, for that's the Consul's carriage."

And Barbara wrung the sheet until there was not a drop of water in it.

It had come now!

She went in and dressed the child; she hardly knew what she was doing, and hardly felt it under her hands.

She saw the man give six dollars to the tinsmith's wife. He was so stiff and tall and distinguished-looking, with such a big, aristocratic nose, and he made a kind of bend every time she happened to look at him, and a.s.sured her that there was no hurry--not the least! They never woke before nine at the Consul's, so there was still plenty of time. And then he looked at his watch.

And every time he looked at his watch, she looked at her boy: there were now orders and a time fixed for her to leave him.